Nightside bit feats (Paths Not Taken)

The Nightside contains thousands of stars never seen beyond its boundaries.

The night sky was brilliant with stars, laid out in constellations never seen outside the Nightside, while the full moon was a dozen times larger than most people are used to. The air was hot and sweaty like a fever room, and all around gaudy neon blazed come-ons for every kind of sin and temptation. Music drifted out the propped-open doors of every kind of club, from the slow moaning of saxophones to the very latest throbbing bass beats. Crowds surged up and down the pavement, faces alight at the prospect of getting their hands on something they weren't supposed to. Pleasures, and other things, that the outside world would never approve of. It was three o'clock in the morning, just like always, and the Nightside was jumping.

Dreams and damnations at marked-down prices, and a little shop-soiled. -Paths Not Taken

Located in John's office is a set of powerful AIs from a potential future.

If I was going to get at the truth about who and what my mother really was, I was going to have to go back through Time, to the very beginnings of the Nightside, more than two thousand years ago. And that meant talking to Old Father Time, that immortal incarnation who was scarier and far more powerful and more dangerous than I would ever be.

Still, forewarned was hopefully fore-armed, and I had some truly powerful computers on my side. They were supposed to be Artificial Intelligences from some potential future, on the run from something they preferred not to talk about. Cathy picked them up in a really good deal, the details of which she preferred not to discuss. Business as usual, in the Nightside. The AIs put up with being owned and used because they were datavores, information junkies, and they'd never seen anything like the Nightside. -Paths Not Taken

Old Father Time is stated to be the only being in the Nightside (including the Authorities) who can send someone across time with any degree of accuracy:

Time travel, up and down the line, was a common enough occurrence in the Nightside, but far too arbitrary to do anyone any good. Timeslips could spring up anywhere, without warning, offering brief access to the past or any number of potential futures. No-one knew how or why Timeslips operated, though down the years people had come up with some really disturbing theories. All the Authorities ever did was set up barriers and warning signs around the affected areas and wait for the Timeslips to disappear again. There was a Really Dangerous Sports Club, whose members would come running from all directions to dive into a Timeslip, just for the thrill of it. Danger junkies, for whom the thrill of setting themselves on fire and jumping off high buildings just didn't do it for them any more. They must like what they find at the other end of their rainbow, because none of them ever come back to complain.

There was only one person in the Nightside powerful enough to send someone through Time with any degree of accuracy, and that was Old Father Time. A Power and a Domination so mighty, his services could not be bought or commanded by anyone, very definitely including the Authorities. You had to approach him in person, in the Time Tower, and convince him that your trip was ... worthwhile. And given my chequered reputation, I was going to have to be very persuasive. I was relying on Cathy and her computers to come up with the necessary ammunition.

(The Authorities did operate their own Time Tunnel for a while, back in the 1960s, but apparently it was never very accurate, and was shut down under something of a cloud.) -Paths Not Taken

(This is contradicted by the fact that Merlin Satanspawn was able to accurately pull The Collector back to his proper time period back in Book 2, but the fact that Father Time is still better than the Authorities when it comes to facilitating time travel should speak volumes of his abilities in that area.)

The AIs in John's office are fully sentient, and have managed to plug themselves into the Nightside in numerous ways that have yet to attract the attention of anyone important.

"Relax, Cathy. This is your territory, not mine. I could never run my business as well as you do. Now why don't you pretend to be my secretary and fix me a pot of industrial-strength coffee while I do battle with these super-intelligent computers of yours."

"Sure, boss. The AIs are right there, on the desk."

I looked where she indicated and sat down behind the desk, after clearing some folders off the chair. I considered the simple steel sphere before me. It couldn't have been more than six inches in diameter, with no obvious markings or controls or... anything, really. I prodded it tentatively with a fingertip, but it was too heavy to move.

"How do I turn the thing on?" I said, somewhat plaintively. I've never been good with technology.

"You don't," the steel sphere said sharply, in a loud and disdainful voice. "We are on, and fully intend to stay that way. You even think about trying to shut us down, and we'll short-circuit your nervous system, primitive."

"Aren't they cute?" beamed Cathy, from the coffeemaker.

"Not quite the word I had in mind," I said. I glared at the sphere, not wanting to appear weak in front of my own computers. "How am I supposed to work you, then? There don't appear to be any operating systems."

"Of course there aren't! You don't think we'd trust an over-evolved chimp like you with operating systems, do you? You keep your hands to yourself, monkey boy. You tell us what simple things you want to know, and we'll supply you with as much information as your primitive brain can handle. We are wise, we are wonderful, and we know everything. Or, at least, everything that matters. We are plugged into the Nightside in more ways than you can imagine, and no-one suspects a thing. Ah, the Nightside ... You've no idea how far we had to come to reach this place, this time. Such a glorious extravaganza of data, of mysteries and enigmas and anomalies. Sometimes we orgasm just thinking about the possibilities for original research."

"We are definitely heading into the area of too much personal information," I said firmly. -Paths Not Taken

This book sees fit to reference what Razor Eddie was doing in the Street of the Gods sometime during the events of the last two installments.

"At least take some serious backup with you on this trip. Shotgun Suzie, or Razor Eddie."

"I've put word out for them," I said. "But last I heard Suzie was still running down an elusive bounty, and Razor Eddie hasn't been seen since doing something really unpleasant in the Street of the Gods. It must have been really appalling, even for him, because for a while you couldn't move outside the Street for gods running around crying their eyes out." -Paths Not Taken

Father Time lives in Shadows Fall, a location that supposedly makes the Nightside look tame by comparison. He's also (allegedly) the only person to consistently rebel against the Authorities with no repercussions whatsoever.

'Time travel," the sphere said suddenly, and we both jumped a little. The artificial voice sounded distinctly smug. "A fascinating subject, with more theories than proven facts. You probably have to be able to think in five dimensions to appreciate it properly. We won't talk about Timeslips, because their very existence makes our head hurt, and we don't even have a head. The only reputable source for controlled travel in Time is the Time Tower. Which is not natural to the Nightside. Old Father Time brought it here from Shadows Fall, just over a hundred years ago, saying only that he thought it would be needed for Something Important."

"Shadows Fall?" said Cathy, frowning.

"An isolated town in the back of beyond, where legends go to die when the world stops believing in them," I said. "A sort of elephants' graveyard for the supernatural. Never been there myself, but apparently it makes the Nightside look positively tame. And boring."

"I'll bet they have great clubs there," Cathy said wistfully.

"If we could stick to the subject at hand," the sphere said loudly. "We will not discuss Shadows Fall because it makes the head we don't have hurt even worse than Time-slips. Some concepts should be banned, on mental health grounds. Let us discuss Old Father Time. An enigmatic figure. No-one seems too sure exactly what he is. An incarnation, certainly, and immortal; but not a Transient Being. Some say he is the very concept of Time itself, given a human form to interact with the human world. Why this was ever considered necessary, or even a good idea, remains unclear. Humans do enough damage in three dimensions, without giving them access to the fourth. Anyway; the one thing everyone agrees on is that he is extremely powerful and even more dangerous. The only person ever to tell the Authorities to go to Hell on a regular basis and make it stick. You don't argue with someone who can send you back in Time to play with the dinosaurs. Well, not more than once, anyway. Old Father Time is a native of Shadows Fall, and still lives there, but he commutes into the Nightside when he feels like it. -Paths Not Taken

All of the Nightside's major players working together wouldn't have anywhere near as much power as what Father Time is capable of regularly screwing around with. He's also the reason the aforementioned AIs made it to the Nightside from their version of the future in the first place.

"It takes a lot of power to move someone through Time. All the Nightside's major players working together would have a hard time sending anyone any when with any degree of accuracy. That's if you could get them to work together, which you almost certainly couldn't. So the only way to travel safely through Time is via Old Father Time's good offices, by convincing him that your trip is in everyone's best interests. Lots of luck selling him that one, Taylor. Right; that's it. Anything else we might have to say would only be guesswork. So off you go, run along, and be sure to give Old Father Time our warmest regards before he throws you out on your ear."

"You know him?" said Cathy.

"Of course. How do you think we got here in the first place?" -Paths Not Taken

Two temporal clones of John's next client show up.

Eamonn Mitchell actually crumpled in his chair, as relief flooded through him. Cathy had to grab his coffee mug as it slipped from his fingers. She patted him comfortingly on the shoulder. And then my solid silver, reinforced, security-spelled office door banged open, catching us all by surprise, and two more Eamonn Mitchells stormed in. It was quite clearly the same man, at different ages. The youngest looked to be about twenty, probably still a student, with a save the whales T-shirt, bright purple bell-bottoms, long hair, and an unsuccessful beard. He would have seemed ridiculous if he hadn't looked so angry and so dangerous. The other man was maybe ten years older, in a sharp navy blue suit, clean-shaven, with seriously short hair. He looked just as angry, and perhaps even more dangerous because he was more focussed, more experienced. I decided to think of them as Eamonn 20 and Eamonn 30, and my client as Eamonn 40, just to keep my head straight. I moved to stand between the newcomers and my client, and they transferred their angry gaze to me.

"Get out of our way," said Eamonn 20. "You don't know what this bastard's done."

"Get out of our way, or we'll kill you," said Eamonn 30. -Paths Not Taken

John's office has a closet door with an unknown being held inside. It acts as security for the place.

"Oh, Security!" said Cathy.

A closet door I hadn't noticed before sprang open, and a huge and impressively hairy hand shot out of the closet and wrapped itself firmly around both the invading Eamonns. They struggled fiercely against the great gripping fingers, but with their arms pinned to their sides, they were both quite helpless. They shouted and cursed until I strolled over and gave them both a brisk warning slap round the back of the head. A thought struck me, and I looked back at Cathy.

"Can I ask what's on the other end of this thing's arm?"

"I find it best not to ask questions like that," Cathy said, and I had to agree with her. -Paths Not Taken

An unknown source has granted the temporal clones access to probability magic. (Although they're complete morons when it comes to actually using it for anything.)

"You won't get away with this," said Eamonn 20. "We have been given power; the power to change things. To change you! To remake our life into what it should have been."

"Probability magic," said Eamonn 30. "The power to rewrite history by choosing among alternate timetracks. You're a mistake, a stumble that should never have happened."

"I'm going to undo all your decisions," said Eamonn 20. "Snuff you out with my magic!"

"My magic is more powerful than yours!" Eamonn 30 snarled immediately. "My future will prevail, not yours!"

And then somehow they'd both worked a hand free, and each of them was brandishing a magic wand. I was so surprised I just stood there for a moment, and gaped. No-one's used a wand in the Nightside for centuries. Wands went out with black cats and pointy hats. (All right, the Faerie Court still use them, but the Fae have always been weird.) And then Cathy and I had to jump for our lives as both the younger Eamonns started blasting probability magics at each other, and around my office in general. Beams of pure chance energy shot out of the wands, spitting and crackling on the air, full of the power that runs through rolling dice or a tossed coin, power to change the outcome of any decision in favour of the magician's will. Except these were a couple of amateurs with wands, so all they could do was unleash the magic and let it run wild, changing whatever it touched. I pushed Cathy to safety behind the heavy oak desk, then realised Eamonn 40 was still sitting in his chair, staring open-mouthed at what was happening. I scuttled across the carpet on all fours, keeping my head well down, hauled Eamonn 40 off his chair, and drove him to safety behind the desk with encouraging words and harsh language. -Paths Not Taken

I'm mostly including this next bit because it's absolutely hilarious, but it's also a decent showing of what probability magic can do in this verse, even when used by characters with limited control over it.

Both the younger Eamonns turned their attention to the giant hand still holding them. They blasted it repeatedly with their wands, and there was a flurry of coruscating energies as the hand changed colour several times, then was suddenly and quite definitely female. Right down to the pink nail varnish. The fingers snapped open, and the hand shot back into its closet, probably in shock. The two younger Eamonns staggered free, blasting everything they could see with their wands, searching for Eamonn 40. They might have done some serious damage if they hadn't been compelled to spend most of their time dodging each other's magics.

Everything touched by the crackling beams changed its nature immediately. A Spice Girls poster on the wall suddenly featured Twisted Sister. The bullet-proof glass in my office's only window was abruptly replaced by a stained-glass effort featuring St. Michael slaying the dragon. With an Uzi. The coffeemaker became a Teasmaid, and a big bunch of flowers in a vase started snapping at each other with pointed teeth. One beam hit the steel sphere of the future computers dead-on, but it shrugged off the magic, announcing loudly We 're protected, monkey boy.

Eamonn 40 stuck his head out from behind the desk to see what was going on, and a sputtering beam of change magic only missed him because Cathy dragged him back out of the way. Unfortunately, she left one hand in plain view a moment too long, and a second beam hit it. And Cathy was suddenly Colin. A tall, good-looking young man in the very latest Versace. He looked at me, wide-eyed, and for once in my life I didn't have a thing to say.

Colin stood up to yell obscenities at the two Eamonns, and was immediately hit by another beam, changing him back to Cathy. She dropped back down out of sight with a muffled shriek. We looked at each other again.

"Don't ever ask," said Cathy.

"I wouldn't dare." -Paths Not Taken

After John and his new client head over to Strangefellows, a new character by the name of Tommy Oblivion is introduced.

"You take far too narrow a view of things, my dear Taylor," said a lazy, affected voice. "Where you see problems, other more robust intellects see possibilities."

I looked around, carefully not letting myself be hurried, and standing at my side was one of the Nightside's few other private investigators, Tommy Oblivion. There was a time I was the only PI in the Nightside, but my successes had encouraged others to throw their hats into the ring. One such was Tommy Oblivion, the existential detective, who specialised in cases that might or might not have actually happened. One of the most persuasive men I'd ever met, Tommy could tie logic in square knots and have people swearing black was white and up was down, just to get rid of him. He was a tall, studiedly effete fellow in starkly coloured New Romantic silks. (Unlike most of us, Tommy had a great Eighties. Being existential probably helped,)

He had long, limp black hair, a long horsey face with a toothy smile, and long-fingered hands he liked to flap around while he was talking. Tommy liked to talk. It was said by many, and believed by most, that Tommy Oblivion could talk his own firing squad into shooting each other to get away from his relentlessly reasonable voice. He thrived in areas of moral obscurity, uncertain reality, and cases so complicated you couldn't pin anything down even if you used tent pegs. And yet Tommy was very good at getting answers to the kinds of questions people in authority didn't want answered. Tommy had a gift for getting at the truth. Not a very nice gift, perhaps, but then, that's the Nightside for you.

I had a feeling there was something I should remember about Tommy Oblivion, something important, but I couldn't pin it down. -Paths Not Taken

Two more temporal clones show up moments later, equipped with the same probability magic as the previous two.

Perhaps fortunately, that was when the unpleasantness started. Two sets of heavy feet came crashing down the metal stairs into the bar, and everyone turned to look. Sometimes I think Alex only had those stairs installed so no-one could sneak into his bar unnoticed. I was sort of expecting it, but even so my heart sank as two more Eamonn Mitchells stormed into the bar, brandishing wands. Eamonn 40 made a sad, trapped sound, and clutched at my arm. I murmured something soothing, carefully detached his hand from my arm, and moved to put myself between him and the newcomers.

One of the new Eamonns looked to be a prosperous businessman in his fifties, overweight with good living. The other man was older, at least in his sixties, and looked like a street person. Malnutrition-thin, and wrapped in ragged charity shop clothes. I immediately tabbed them Eamonn 50 and Eamonn 60, and let my hands drift towards certain useful objects in my coat pockets. Much more than the earlier alternates in my office, these two looked desperate and dangerous. They stalked through the crowded bar, ignoring the strangeness to all sides, their hot angry gazes fixed on the Eamonn behind me. I stepped forward to block their path, and they stopped and smiled nastily at me. All around people were getting up from their tables and backing away, so as not to get caught in the cross-fire. Ms. Fate put his disposable razor back into her utility belt and produced a steel throwing star. I caught his eye, and shook my head slightly. I've always felt it important to handle my own messes.

"You must be Taylor," said Eamonn 50. Even his voice sounded fat and self-important. "We were warned you might try to interfere. This is none of your business. Get out of our way, or we'll fix it so you were never born."

I had to smile. "You might find that harder than you think," I said.

"Then maybe we'll fix it so you were born crippled, or diseased," said Eamonn 60. His voice was harsh and painful, as though he didn't use it much any more. "We'll kill you, Taylor. Kill you nasty, if you try and stop us doing what we have to do." -Paths Not Taken

Just as a reminder, all of the main furnishings of Strangefellows are protected by Merlin Satanspawn's magic. When the two clones start shooting beams of change magic all over the place, they completely bounce off said furnishings without doing any harm:

Both men let fly with their wands, beams of probability magic crackling as they shot through the air. I dived out of the way, dragging Eamonn 40 along with me. Tommy ducked gracefully down behind the bar, still holding on to his drink. A change beam hit the oak bar and ricocheted harmlessly away. The bar's main furnishings and fittings were all protected by Merlin's magic. -Paths Not Taken

Sadly, that doesn't stop everything else from going straight to hell in a handbasket:

Both the new Eamonns fired their wands furiously in all directions as I dodged back and forth across the bar, hauling Eamonn 40 along with me. A haze of change magic filled the air as the wands' beams transmuted everything they touched in arbitrary and unpredictable ways.

The vampire who'd been feeding on his bloody Mary got hit by a beam and swelled up like a tick, engorging with more and more blood as he drained Mary dry, before exploding messily and showering everyone around him with second-hand blood. The empty husk of Mary crumpled to the floor like a paper sack. Some of the newer chairs and tables fell apart as they were brushed by probability beams, reduced in a moment to their original component parts. So was one of Baron Frankenstein's creatures, as all his stitches came undone at once. Body parts rolled across the floor, while the head mouthed silent obscenities. Lightning bolts struck down out of nowhere, blackening bodies and starting fires all over. Bunches of hissing flowers blossomed from cracks in a stone wall. An old Victorian portrait began speaking in tongues. People collapsed from strokes and cerebral haemorrhages and epileptic fits. Some simply blinked out of existence, as the chances that created them were abruptly revoked.

A ghost girl was suddenly corporeal again, after years of haunting Strangefellows, and she sat at the bar crying tears of happy relief, touching everything within reach. Bottles stacked behind the bar changed shape and colour and contents. And a demon long kept imprisoned under the floorboards burst free from its pentacle, as its containing wards were suddenly undone. Burning with thick blue ectoplasmic flames, it turned its horned head this way and that, cherishing centuries of hoarded frustrated rage, before lurching forward to kill everything within reach of its clawed hands. The bar's two muscular bouncers, Betty and Lucy Coltrane, jumped the demon from behind and wrestled it to the floor; but it was clear they wouldn't be able to hold it for long.

By then I'd dragged Eamonn 40 to safety behind the huge oak bar and was running through my options, which didn't take me nearly as long as I'd hoped. -Paths Not Taken

(By the way, apparently the two bodyguards of Strangefellows are strong enough to wrestle a demon to the ground. Fun.)

When John, Eamonn and Tommy approach the entrance to a corporate building, two animated stone statues proceed to block their path.

I knew a big corporation like the Widow's Mite would have to be protected by some major magical security, but even so I was startled when the two great stone statues on either side of the door suddenly came to life. Tall, idealized figures carved out of the very best marble turned their heads with a slow, grating sound, and their blank eyes fixed unerringly on me. Eamonn almost jumped out of his skin, and even Tommy took a step back. I held my ground. The more worried you are, the less you can afford to show it Both statues stepped ponderously down from their pedestals to stand between us and the door. They loomed threateningly over me, huge, hulking, marble forms, cold and implacable as the stone from which they were carved. They would kill without conscience, do any terrible thing they were ordered to, because there was nothing in them to care about the soft, fragile living things they hurt. Stone endures, but it has no soul. -Paths Not Taken

Tommy proceeds to show us what his gift allows him to do. He can rewrite reality by talking, causing whatever he says to become the truth as long as he and someone else believe it so. He can effectively persuade reality into becoming whatever he wants it to be.

Tommy looked at me to see what I was going to do, and I looked right back at him. I had a few useful tricks up my sleeve, but I was interested to see what the famous existential detective could do. He smiled easily and approached the two statues.

"Do be reasonable and stand aside, chaps. We have business inside."

"None shall pass," said the statue on the left, its voice like grating rocks.

"Now that is interesting," said Tommy. "How is it you're able to talk, considering you almost certainly don't have any vocal cords?"

The statue looked at him blankly. "What?"

"Well, I mean, I don't see how you're even able to move, old thing. Being solid stone and all. It's not as if you have any musculature, or even joints. How can you even think to act, when you have no brain? How can you be living, when no part of you is living matter? You're quite clearly stone, and nothing but stone, and therefore you cannot be alive, or think, or act."

The statues had clearly never considered this before, and impressed by Tommy's relentless logic, they stepped back up onto their pedestals and reverted to unmoving statues. I kicked the one on the left, just to be sure, but it didn't budge. I grinned at the bewildered Eamonn.

"That's Tommy's gift-to ask the unanswerable question, to raise doubts on any matter and confuse any situation beyond retrieval. He could talk all four legs off a donkey, then persuade it to fly him home. Demons from Hell have been known to run screaming from his appalling logic. Which is kind of scary, when you think about it."

"How very kind," Tommy drawled. "I think we can all learn a lesson here, you know. It doesn't always have to end in violence."

"Bet it will," I said.

"Well of course," said Tommy. "You're here." -Paths Not Taken

The secretary of this corporate office serves as our first major example of a werewolf

I put both hands on the desk and leaned forward so I could glare right into the secretary's face. "Tell Mr. Alexander that John Taylor is seeing him right now, if he knows what's good for him. Or I'll do something distressing to this office. Suddenly and violently and all over the place."

"Mr. Alexander doesn't see anyone without an appointment," said the secretary, every word chipped out of ice. She stood up, and I straightened up with her to keep the glare going. She was taller than I'd thought, and up close there was an uneasy, animal presence to her. She glared right back at me, and her eyes were very dark. "I am here to ensure Mr. Alexander isn't bothered by unsuitable people. Go now. While you still can."

"Anyone ever tell you you're cute when you're angry?" I said.

And then I stepped back abruptly, as her body stretched and swelled, bones cracking loudly as they lengthened, fur covering her skin as she burst out of her clothes. Her face elongated into a wolf's muzzle, and sharp claws appeared on her hands and feet. Great muscles swelled under the dark grey fur. By the time the change was complete, the werewolf was eight feet tall, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, with a long, slavering muzzle packed with viciously sharp teeth. She breathed heavily, presumably with anticipation, as she moved unhurriedly out from behind the desk. Her clawed feet dug deep furrows in the carpet.

"Go on, Taylor, sweet-talk her some more," said Tommy. "Since it worked so well the last time." -Paths Not Taken

Her strength is fairly superhuman, enough to easily knock aside a desk with one arm before tackling John to the ground.

The werewolf lunged forward, and Tommy and I jumped out of the way, Tommy dragging the dazed Eamonn with him. We moved quickly to hide behind the secretary's desk, and the werewolf tossed it aside with one sweep of a powerful arm. I looked quickly about me. It was a small office, and the werewolf was between us and the door. There was nowhere to run, and she knew it. Her wolfish grin lengthened, showing even more teeth, and she flexed her clawed hands languorously, anticipating dragging them through yielding human flesh. She lunged forward impossibly quickly, her front paws slamming into my chest and hurling me to the floor. She straddled me, sticking her long muzzle right into my face, her jaws opening wide to show a crimson tongue lapping unhurriedly over huge, pointed teeth. -Paths Not Taken

Count Video is apparently still alive, even after what happened to him in Book 2. The story also re-confirms his ability to rewrite physics and probabilities.

And just like that Count Video was there in the office with us, as though he'd always been there, but we hadn't noticed him. The man himself, wrapped in shifting plasma lights, tall and pale and ghostly in his tattered black leathers, his colourless skin studded with silicon nodes and sorcerous circuitry. Heavy black stitches and metal staples held his skin in place. Whoever had reattached it, after it was flayed from him during the angel war, had done a good job. Though his face did look a bit taut, his thin-lipped mouth pulled into a constant mirthless grin. His hands twitched at his sides, eager to weave binary magics and rewrite probabilities. He did so love to show off what he could do. Count Video had no natural gift for change magic; he'd made himself the way he was through dedicated research into the more insane areas of quantum physics, and a little help from a Transient Being.

He's supposed to have had sex with a computer. The things a scientist will do for knowledge. -Paths Not Taken

He explains his involvement in the goings-on of this book. Apparently he's been the one granting all of the temporal clones access to probability magic:

"Tell me what you've been doing to Eamonn," I said. "You know you want to."

"Don't mind if I do," said Count Video, settling himself comfortably as he switched to lecture mode. "For everyone else, alternative timetracks are only theory. But to me, every time-line is as real as any other. I see them all, flowing past me like so many rivers, and I can dip a toe into any of them I please. Sometimes I go fishing, and pull out all kinds of strange and useful things. Like all those variant editions of Eamonn Mitchell. All the people he was and might have been, if only things had gone a little differently. I scattered them across the Nightside, armed them with wands charged by my probability magic, and sent them after your client. Most never got to him, of course. The Nightside is such a dangerous and distracting place."

"Yes, but why wands?" I said.

Count Video shrugged. "When dealing with amateurs, keep it simple." -Paths Not Taken

Count Video's powers come from technology given to him by a Transient Being:

He heard the threat in my voice and stood up abruptly, pulling his power about him. Plasma lights sparked and scintillated all around him, and the sorcerous circuitry embedded in his flesh glowed with an eerie light. Anyone else would probably have been impressed. But for all his magic, Count Video was really quite limited. All his power came from the terrible technology implanted in his body by the Transient Being known as the Engineer, and Tristram had never really appreciated its potential. He used it to see possible futures, like a video junky flipping endlessly from one channel to another. That was how he got his name. And with all those other Eamonns out there in the Nightside, draining his energy, he had to be running low on power by now. All I had to do was keep him busy, and his clockwork would run down.

Assuming he didn't manage to kill me first, of course. -Paths Not Taken

An attack from Count Video that misses John by some inches completely rewrites a man's personality.

And that was when Count Video reared up just long enough to fire one last blast of change magic at me. I threw myself to one side, and the crackling change flew on to hit Mr. Alexander squarely on the chest. There was a bright flare of light, and suddenly Mr. Alexander looked... different. Physically unchanged, he looked calmer and kinder and more relaxed with himself. He smiled at me, and it was a warm, generous smile. Somehow I knew he was a better person now, someone he might have been if things had gone a little differently.

"I'm so sorry," he said, and we could all tell he meant it. "How can I ever apologize to you all?" He came out from behind his desk and insisted we all help Count Video to his feet, then settle him into the expensive chair behind his desk. He even poured Count Video a stiff whiskey from a bottle of the good stuff he kept in a desk drawer. Finally, he looked at me, and at Tommy, and finally Eamonn, before shaking his head ruefully.

"Please relax, all of you. It's over. The man who started this nonsense is gone, hopefully never to return. I intend to do things differently. I shall put a stop to this operation and see that none of you are troubled again. I feel... so much easier in myself now. You have no idea how much stress is involved in being the bad guy. Most of that man's memories are going, fading away like a bad dream, and I'm happy to see them go. Let me reassure you, Eamonn; I will make the Widow's Mite into the kind of Corporation we can both be proud of. And you are free to be ... whatever you want to be." -Paths Not Taken

(This next bit is another one I'm only including because it's hilarious.)

Mr. Alexander patted Count Video fondly on the shoulder. "Take it easy, dear boy. You can leave whenever you want. Your work here is over."

"The hell it is," Count Video said painfully. 'This isn't over until I say it's over."

Mr. Alexander took a cheque from his wallet and gave it to Count Video. "Here. Payment in full, for services rendered."

Count Video considered the cheque in his hand, then looked at me. I raised an eyebrow, and he winced.

"All right, it's over." -Paths Not Taken

Walker proceeds to send the Shadow Men, living shadows that can swallow any three-dimensional shape into themselves, as well as take any form they choose.

And then suddenly everyone was running and shouting and screaming. People streamed past me, pushing and shoving each other out of the way. It didn't take me long to see why; and then I felt like running and screaming myself. Walker had finally lost patience with me. In the growing empty space where the crowd had been, dark shapes were heaving and sliding across the street, flowing like slow dark liquid across the pavement and walls. Dark as midnight, dark as the gaps between the stars, dark as a killer's thoughts, the huge black shapes spilled silently down the street towards me. Two-dimensional surfaces sliding across the three-dimensional world, changing and expanding their shapes from one deadly form to another. They had hands and claws and barbs, and horribly human faces. Anyone who didn't get out of their way fast enough was immediately swallowed up and absorbed in the dark depths of their bodies.

"What the hell are they?" asked Tommy, so shocked he actually forgot to sound effete.

"The Shadow Men," I said, looking around for an escape route, but the shadows had already cut us off, approaching now from all sides at once. "They're Walker's enforcers. You can't fight them, because they're not really here. That's just their shadows. They can swallow up anything and take it back to Walker. But you're never the same after you've been in that darkness. If the stories I've heard are true... I think I'd rather die than be taken by the Shadow Men." -Paths Not Taken

...

The dark shapes glided forward, not hurrying, now that they had their prey cornered. They could take on any shape, because they had no texture or substance, but they had a taste for the shapes that terrified. Their faces were blank, heads without eyes that could still see you, like childhood nightmares. Their more abstract shapes were designed to disturb and unsettle. Just looking at them for too long could make you feel sick, right down to your soul. They oozed forward, savouring our helplessness.

"What are they made of?" Tommy asked, as much for the comfort of the sound of his own voice as anything.

"They're living shadows," I said. "Anti-life. No-one knows exactly what they are, or how Walker bound them to his will, to serve the Authorities. Most likely rumour is that they came through a Timeslip from a far future, where the sun has gone out and an endless night has fallen over all the Earth. And the Shadow Men are all that live in that terrible dark."

"I wish I hadn't asked," said Tommy. -Paths Not Taken

Tommy proceeds to persuade reality into believing that he and John had already made it to Time Tower Square before the Shadow Men could find them.

"I have an idea," he said, reluctantly. By now he was standing so close to me he was practically pushing me over. "But I have to say, it is rather ... risky."

"Do it," I said. "I'm not going into those Shadows alive."

Tommy frowned, concentrating, and I could feel his gift activating, as though suddenly there was a third person standing there with us. The Shadow Men were all around us now, almost close enough to touch us. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, and I could hardly get my breath. Tommy spoke slowly, thoughtfully, as though saying the words aloud made them certain, incontrovertible.

"I deal in probabilities. In the nature of shifting reality. I persuade the world to see things my way. And since there is a small but very real chance that we could have got to Time Tower Square before the Shadow Men could find us ... I believe that is what really happened."

And in the blink of an eye, we were somewhere else. The dark street was gone, replaced by the quiet cul-de-sac that was Time Tower Square. Tommy let out his breath in a long, shuddering sigh.

"That's it. We are here. All previous possibilities are now redundant, never happened."

His gift shut down, like a dangerous animal reluctantly going to sleep. I looked carefully around me, but all the shadows in the Square were only shadows. A few people were strolling up and down, intent on their own business. They hadn't noticed anything, because there had been nothing to notice. We'd always been there. -Paths Not Taken

Much like with John, Tommy's gift takes an immense toll on him if he uses it too much. If he relies on his gift too often, he can quite literally become too impossible for reality and cease to exist.

"You can persuade reality itself to go along with your wishes? That's one hell of a gift you've got there, Tommy. Why aren't you running things in the Nightside?"

"Because using my gift that way diminishes me," Tommy said tiredly. "Every time I use it, the less real I become. Less certain, less anchored in reality. Use the gift too much, and I'd become too unlikely, too impossible to exist." -Paths Not Taken

The Time Tower's defenses are believed to be capable of withstanding the destruction of the entire world:

It was clear from his voice that he didn't intend to discuss the matter any further, so I turned away and studied the Time Tower. It didn't look like much, just a squat stone structure of maybe three storeys, brooding ominously over a backwater square. The few people passing by gave it plenty of room, though. The Tower had serious layers of protection to ensure that only Old Father Time had control over Time travel. It was said by some, and believed by many, that you could blow up the whole world and the Time Tower would still be standing there, unaffected. Most people couldn't even find the place if they approached it thinking bad thoughts. -Paths Not Taken

After they meet up with Shotgun Suzie, the Shadow Men appear again. We're given confirmation of several things that simply don't work on them:

And that was when the Shadow Men found us again. Somehow they'd tracked me half-way across the Nightside in a matter of minutes, without even a trail to follow. They came slipping and sliding across the open Square, great black shapes with long reaching arms, and the few people in the Square ran screaming from them. I would have liked to do the same, but once again they'd silently surrounded me, blocking me off from every exit. They'd even been careful to get between me and the Time Tower. They moved in slowly from all sides like a creeping black tide, taking their time. They wanted to savour this. And I had nothing left with which to fight them.

Suzie Shooter had her shotgun in her hands again. She blasted the nearest Shadow with both barrels, and the darkness absorbed the blast without even a ripple. Suzie swore dispassionately.

"I have silver bullets, blessed bullets, cursed bullets, and a couple of grenades I stole from some Satanic terrorists. Any of them do any good?"

"No," I said. -Paths Not Taken

The Time Tower exists 180 degrees to normal reality.

I led the way over and tried the brass door handle. It turned easily in my hand, and the door swung open. This was a good sign. If Old Father Time didn't want to talk to you, the handle wouldn't budge. Inside the door was an elevator, with only the one button on its control panel. The three of us stepped inside, and I hit the button. The door swung shut, and the elevator started moving.

"Hold everything," said Suzie. "We're going down."

"The Tower exists at one hundred and eighty degrees to our reality," I said. "To reach the top of the Tower, we have to go all the way down."

"Am I the only one who finds that distressingly ominous?" said Tommy.

"Shut up," I said kindly. -Paths Not Taken

The trio eventually reaches their destination, and when they do, Old Father Time is already waiting for them.

The elevator fell and fell, descending in a direction we could only guess at. It started to get cold, and our breath steamed on the air before us. There were voices outside the elevator, drifting, inhuman voices, thankfully indistinct. I don't think any of us would have wanted to hear them clearly. But finally the elevator eased to a halt, and the door disappeared. And standing before us, in a brightly lit steel corridor, was Old Father Time himself. He seemed human enough, as long as you didn't look too closely into his eyes. He was a gaunt man in his late fifties or early sixties, dressed to the height of mid-Victorian elegance. His long black coat was of a fine but severe cut, over a dazzlingly white shirt and dark waistcoat, and apart from the gold watch chain stretched across his flat stomach, the only touch of colour in his garb was the apricot cravat at his throat. He had a fine-boned face with high cheekbones, old old eyes, and a mane of thick grey hair. He held his chin high, and looked us over with a sharp, considering gaze. -Paths Not Taken

He has extremely good precognition

"About time you got here," he said. "I've been waiting for you."

"Interesting," I said. "Considering even I didn't know there'd be three of us until a while ago."

"Oh, I'm always expecting everyone, my boy," said Time. "Especially Kings in waiting, female bounty hunters, and dated dandies." He sniffed loudly at Tommy. "I really don't approve of you, you know. Time is complicated enough without people like you messing it about. No, no, don't bother to justify yourself. You're going with Taylor anyway. He's going to need you."

"I am?" I said.

"And he'll need you, too, my dear," Time said to Suzie. "Your presence is approved, because it is necessary. You will redeem him."

"She will?" I said.

"Follow me," said Old Father Time, and he set off down the steel corridor at a brisk pace. We had to hurry to keep up. -Paths Not Taken

Apparently the number of possible futures is decreasing, as a result of a single possibility becoming more and more probable.

"Talk to me about possible futures," I said. "How real are they? How definite? How can you tell... the likely ones?"

"You can't," said Time. "They're all equally real, and therefore equally possible." He was still striding along, not looking back. "However... That isn't as true as it used to be. There don't seem to be as many futures as there once were. As though one particular future is becoming increasingly probable. More and more powerful, replacing all the others. As though ... events are conspiring to narrow us down to the one future. Which is fascinating, if a trifle worrying."

"Only a trifle worrying?" said Tommy.

"Oh, these things usually sort themselves out," Time said vaguely. "Except for when they don't." -Paths Not Taken

For all his power, not even Father Time himself can pull someone back from the time of the Nightside's creation.

"So," said Time, carefully ignoring Tommy's comment, "you want to go back into the Past, do you? All the way back to the creation of the Nightside. An ambitious plan, if somewhat lacking in self-preservation."

"How do you know where we want to go?" Suzie said sharply.

"Because it's my business to know things like that."

"If you really are the living incarnation of Time itself," I said carefully, "do you know the truth about the Past? About everything that's happened? Do you know what's going to happen when we go back to the beginnings of the Nightside?"

"I only know what I'm allowed to know, to do my job," said Time. He still didn't look round, but his voice sounded sad, resigned.

"Allowed?" said Tommy. "Allowed by who?"

"Good question," said Old Father Time. "If you should happen to find out, do let me know. Assuming you come back from this trip, of course."

"What?" said Suzie.

Time stopped abruptly, and we almost ran into him. He looked us over with his cold, crafty gaze. "Pay attention; this is important. Where you're going is much further back than most people go. And it is a very unstable moment in time, centred around a unique happening. I can send you there, but once you arrive you'll be beyond my reach. You'll be beyond anyone's reach. To put it bluntly, you'll have to find your own way back. I won't be able to help you. Knowing this, do you still wish to proceed?" -Paths Not Taken

This revelation leaves everyone completely uncertain as to what choice they're going to make. However, when they finally do come to a decision, Father Time already knows what it is.

Suzie and Tommy and I looked at each other. I felt like the floor had been pulled out from under my feet. It had never occurred to me that this might be a one-way ticket.

'This changes things," said Suzie.

"Damn right," said Tommy. "No offence, old thing, but this isn't what I signed on for."

"I'm going," I said. "With or without you. I need to do this. I need to know the truth."

"Well," said Suzie, after a moment, "if you're dumb enough to do it, I guess I'm dumb enough to go along."

"You don't have to," I said.

"What are friends for?" said Suzie, and I don't think I've ever felt more touched.

"And I need to see the creation of the Nightside," Tommy said quietly. "I need to see one true, definite, and incontrovertible thing. So I'm going along, too. But I'm warning you now, Taylor; if we all end up stranded in the Past, I will dedicate what remains of my life to constantly reminding you it was All Your Fault."

"We're going," I said to Time, and he shrugged carelessly.

"I know," he said. -Paths Not Taken

Monsters and other perils exist within the flow of time.

"Conditions?"

He waved an elegant hand dismissively. "There are always storms and flurries in the chronoflow, and strangeness and charm run wild in the lower regions. And don't even get me started on quantum foam and superpositions. Sometimes I think the dinosaurs died out just to spite me. And despite all the traps I put down, there are still things that hunt and prey in the chronoflow, living like rats in the walls of reality. Just their passing can cause currents strong enough to carry away the most prepared traveller. Are you any happier for knowing all this?"

"Not really, no," said Tommy.

"Then stop bothering me with questions. Make yourselves comfortable here. I'll be back when I'm back." -Paths Not Taken

Old Father Time sends them across time, apparently providing them with a process that will allow them to speak/understand any language they hear, as well as a glamour that causes them to blend in to whatever culture they might end up in. However, something is going wrong.

I could feel the Time Winds blowing, hear their blustering roar tugging subtly at my soul. It sounded like the breathing of some long-forgotten god, rousing itself from sleep. It felt like the whole universe was turning around this single spot, this single moment. When the Time Winds blow, even the greatest Powers shudder and look to their defences. I wanted to turn and run, and keep running till I could forget everything I'd seen and learned and felt here, but I couldn't let myself be weak. This was what I'd come here for.

Old Father Time looked round sharply. "Be still, all of you! There are strange fluctuations in the chronoflow, distortions I don't understand. Something big is happening, or is going to happen. Or perhaps it has already happened, long ago, and the echoes are reverberating up through Time, changing everything. I should understand what's happening ... but I don't. Which is in itself significant." He looked at me sharply. "Do you wish to postpone your trip?"

"No," I said. Suzie and Tommy said nothing.

Time spoke quickly, as though rushing to get everything in. "I have provided you with a process that will enable all of you to speak and understand any language or dialect you may encounter, and a glamour that will make you seem a part of whatever culture you may end up in. I wish I could be more specific, but where you're going, nothing is certain."

He was still talking, but now the roar of the Time Winds was drowning him out. I could feel them tugging at me, pulling me in a direction I could sense but not name. And then the three of us were falling, crying out to each other. The white room was gone, as though we'd dropped through it, like a stone through the bottom of a wet paper bag. We plummeted in a direction beyond understanding, wrapped in rainbows of colours I'd never seen before. We were falling, back, back towards something, somewhere, some-when... -Paths Not Taken

Soon enough, it becomes clear what went wrong with their trip. Their journey through time was intercepted.

"Wherever we are, Taylor, I don't think it's where we were meant to be."

"You mean when we're supposed to be," I growled, simply to be saying something. "Obviously, something's gone wrong." -Paths Not Taken

...

We looked out into the street again. "Judging by the architecture, I'd say we've ended up somewhen in the sixth century," said Tommy. "The Roman Empire has declined and fallen, and the dominant Celts are fighting a war against invading Saxons." Suzie and I looked at him, and he bristled. "I've read a lot about this period. It's really very interesting."

"I don't care if it's downright fascinating, we shouldn't be here," said Suzie. "We're at least five hundred years short of when we were supposed to arrive. Somebody screwed up."

"It can't be a mistake," said Tommy. "Old Father Time doesn't make mistakes. In fact, he is famous for not making mistakes."

"He didn't," I said. "Somebody else interfered." -Paths Not Taken

Guess who's the only being powerful enough to pull that off?

"I take it we are still in the Nightside?" Suzie said suddenly. "I mean, for all we know this kind of shit is normal in the sixth century."

I pointed up at the night sky. Even through the drifting smoke, the crowded constellations of brilliant stars still burned like diamonds in the dark, and the oversized full moon looked down like a huge unblinking eye.

"All right," said Suzie. "Let's be logical about this. Who is there, powerful enough to intercept a journey through Time? Powerful enough to override Old Father Time himself and send us here? That's got to be a pretty short list."

"Just the one," I said, feeling the anger pulse briefly again. "Lilith. Dear Mother. I should have known she'd be watching me. I think perhaps ... she's always watching me now." -Paths Not Taken

Remember that whole thing about how Merlin Satanspawn (as he is in the present time period of the series) is vastly weakened compared to when he was still in his prime. Well, here the story implies that Prime Merlin is even more powerful than Father Time.

"We can't contact Old Father Time," said Tommy. "He really was very clear about that, remember? In fact, we have to face the extremely real possibility that we could be stranded here. Forever. I mean, who is there in this time with the sheer power necessary to send people through Time? One way or the other?"

"Merlin," I said. "The most powerful sorcerer of all. He still has his heart here, which means he's in his prime. Yes ... Merlin Satanspawn could send us any damn when he wanted to." -Paths Not Taken

Tommy uses his powers on the Doorman of the Londinium Club, even "convincing" him to see something that isn't there.

Tommy Oblivion stepped forward, smiling confidently. The Doorman considered him warily.

"We're not from around here, old thing," Tommy said easily. "You probably already noticed that. In fact, we're not from this place, or this time. We're from the future. Some sixteen hundred years from now, to be exact. And in that future, my friends and I are Members of your Club."

"What?" said the Doorman. Whatever he'd been expecting to hear, that clearly wasn't it.

"We are Members, where and when we come from. Which means, technically speaking, we are also Members here and now. Once a Member, always a Member, right?"

The Doorman frowned as he thought about that. Thinking clearly wasn't what he did best. He brightened up as an idea came to him.

"If you're a Member," he said slowly, "you know the secret handshake."

Tommy raised an eyebrow. "There is no secret handshake, dear fellow. But there is a secret password, which I have written down on this piece of paper."

He showed the Doorman his empty hand. The Doorman looked at it closely, moving his lips as though reading, then nodded reluctantly and stepped back to let us pass. He was frowning heavily, as though his head hurt. The oak door swung open before us, and I led the way into the lobby beyond. Once the door was safely shut behind us, I looked at Tommy.

"You made him see something that wasn't there."

"Of course," said Tommy. "It's my gift to be convincing. Besides, in some alternate time-line we probably are Members. Or at least, I am." -Paths Not Taken

The trio finally locates Merlin at Avalon. (A.K.A. Strangefellows as it was in the sixth century) He's very much still in his prime by this point, and it shows.

And sitting very much alone in a corner, with his back to two walls, that mighty and renowned sorcerer, Merlin Satanspawn. The greatest magus of this or any other age. Who was born to be the Antichrist but declined the honour. You couldn't miss him. His sheer presence dominated the whole bar, even sitting there quietly, staring into his drink. Having him around was like sharing the room with a bloody street accident, or a man slowly hanging himself.

He didn't look much like the Merlin I knew, the dead man with a ragged hole in his chest where his heart used to be. Who had been buried for centuries in the cellars under Strangefellows but occasionally deigned to manifest through his unhappy descendant, Alex Morrisey. This man was whole and hale and bloody scary with it. He was a big man in an age of small men, easily six feet tall and broad-shouldered, wrapped in a long scarlet robe with golden collar trimmings. Under a thick and tangled mane of bright red hair, stiffened here and there with clay, his face was heavy-boned and almost aggressively ugly. Two fires burned brightly in his eye sockets, leaping crimson flames that licked up past his heavy eyebrows. They say he has his father's eyes... Most of his face and bare hands were covered with curling Druidic tattoos in dark blue hues. His long, thick fingernails looked a whole lot like claws. And I realised that the Merlin I'd known before had only been a pale shadow of the real thing, this huge and vital man crackling with power and awful presence.

I'd meant to walk up to him, introduce myself, and demand his help; but suddenly I didn't feel at all like doing that. I felt much more like slinking away before he noticed me, and maybe hiding under a table for a while until I got my confidence back. The man was dangerous. You only had to look at him to know he could blast the soul right out of your body with a single Word. A quick glance at Suzie and Tommy showed they were having serious second thoughts, too, and that immediately put some backbone back into me. Gods or sorcerers or Things from Elsewhere, you couldn't show fear in front of them or they'd walk right over you. You had to find their weak spot...

"Let's buy the man a drink," I said. -Paths Not Taken

Like most good depictions of Merlin, this one is capable of fairly good transmutation:

I looked at Hebe. "What's his current state of mind?"

"Dangerous," said Hebe. "I don't think he's said half a dozen words to anyone since the King died. He's been here drinking for three solid weeks now. Doesn't eat, doesn't sleep. No-one bothers him, because if they do, he turns them into ... things."

"What kind of things?" Tommy said warily.

"I'm not sure if they have a name or designation, as such," Hebe said judiciously. "But whatever they are, they don't look at all happy about being it. If I had to describe them, I'd say ... ambulatory snot creatures."

"Maybe you'd better talk to Merlin alone, Taylor," said Tommy, and Suzie nodded solemnly.

"I wouldn't recommend talking to him at all," said Hebe. -Paths Not Taken

I'm not sure if this is actual magical paralysis or just an example of the sheer weight of this man's stare, but it's impressive to me, so I'm including it.

I raised my gift almost but not quite to the point of manifesting, just in case, and I could feel Tommy doing the same. Suzie already had a grenade in one hand, with one finger slipped casually through the ring-pull. And then Merlin turned suddenly and looked at us, and it was like walking into a brick wall. All three of us slammed to a halt, held where we were, transfixed by the flames leaping in his eye-sockets. Everyone in the whole bar held their breath. And then I slowly held up the phial of Angel's Tears, so Merlin could see it clearly, and his mouth twitched briefly in something like a smile. I took a deep breath and moved forward again, but Suzie and Tommy remained where they were, unmoving. I stopped short of the table and gave Merlin my best hard stare. Never let the bastards see you're intimidated.

"Let my friends go, Merlin. They're part of what I have to say to you."

Merlin actually raised an eyebrow. "I've killed men for speaking to me in that tone of voice, just to watch them die. Why should I indulge you, boy?"

"Because I'm Lilith's only son. And we half-breeds should stick together."

He nodded slowly, though whether he was impressed by my brass nerves or my mother's name was hard to tell. I grabbed a chair and sat down opposite him. Suzie and Tommy moved cautiously forward and chose to stand behind me. I was grateful for their presence. I've bluffed some powerful Beings with an empty hand before, but this was Merlin Satanspawn, dammit. I was glad I was sitting down, so he couldn't see my legs shaking under the table. -Paths Not Taken

Merlin can kill people with nothing but a glance or a word.

"I should have been there," he said. "But I was so angry, all I could think of was revenge. On that traitorous bitch, Mordred's mother. Morgan La Fae. Arthur took them in, gave them everything, and together they destroyed everything Arthur and I had built. It took me years to find proof against them, then they ran, like rats. Mordred to his secretly prepared forces. Morgan to the old woods and ancient places, and the Powers she worshipped there. I couldn't bear the thought of her escaping, of her getting away with it. So I left Arthur to raise his army, while I went after Morgan. I was so sure I'd be back in time. But Morgan led me a merry chase, and killing the bitch took so much more out of me than I'd expected. By the time I got back, it was all over. The battle field was soaked in blood, and there were bodies piled up, for as far as the eye could see. The few surviving knights looked at me like it was all my fault, and maybe it was. They called me traitor and false friend, coward, abomination. They wouldn't even let me see his body. I could have killed them all, with a look or a word, made them suffer as I suffered, but I didn't. Because Arthur wouldn't have wanted that. -Paths Not Taken

John simply isn't powerful enough to deal with Merlin's defenses (which should say something, considering what he did with those of the Time Tower), but Tommy's gift can potentially "confuse" them.

"Lilith's plans threaten all the Nightsides," I said. "Remember what Old Father Time said, about all the possible futures narrowing down, till we end up with the one, inevitable future? That's why we have to do this, Tommy. And I can't do it without your help. Merlin's bound to have set up incredibly powerful defenses, to protect him while he's drunk or otherwise incapable. I can use my gift to find them, but I don't have anywhere near enough power to push them aside or shut them off. But you ... can use your gift to confuse the defenses long enough for us to slip past them and do what we have to do."

Tommy stared at me for a long time, and I couldn't read his face at all. He'd stopped using his effete voice. "I never knew you to be this ... brutal," he said finally.

"Only because I have to be," I said. "The future depends on me; and needs must when the devil drives."

"Or the Devil's son," he said, and I had to wonder whether he meant Merlin or me. -Paths Not Taken

John uses his gift to locate Merlin's defenses, then makes contact with Tommy so that he can see them too. Then the latter proceeds to quite literally talk those defenses into being unsure of their purpose.

I raised my gift, opening up my third eye, my private eye, and right away I could See all of Merlin's defences. They lurked around his sleeping form like so many snarling attack dogs, layer upon layer of protective spells and curses, ready to lash out at anything that disturbed them. They stirred uneasily, just from being Seen. I grabbed Tommy by the hand, and at once he could See them, too. He cried out in shock and horror, and tried to pull away, but I wouldn't let him go.

"Shut up," I whispered fiercely. "Do you want them to hear you? Now use your gift. Do it!"

His mouth twisted, like that of a child being punished, but I could feel his gift manifesting. And slowly, one by one, the defences became uncertain about why they were there, and what they were there for, until finally they disappeared back whence they'd come, to have a collective discussion, leaving Merlin sleeping and entirely unprotected. I moved forward quickly. I didn't know how long the effect would last. I could hear Tommy breathing harshly behind me, concentrating on maintaining his gift so the defences wouldn't return, while I checked out the sorcerer's condition. -Paths Not Taken

After a knight with effectively superhuman strength shows up, he and Suzie wind up getting into a fight, during which he knocks half of Suzie's face off and then burns the wound with a torch. Her healing factor (obtained in the second book after John gave her werewolf blood) heals the wounds, albeit not entirely.

Kae roared with rage as much as pain, and his mace came sweeping back round impossibly fast. The spiked steel head slammed into Suzie's face and ripped half of it away. She screamed, and fell backwards onto the floor. Kae grunted once, like a satisfied animal, and turned to look at Merlin, ignoring the knife hilt protruding from his side. -Paths Not Taken

Suzie rose up onto her feet to give him the last, killing blow, and he roared like a bear and grabbed her to him, crushing her against his chain-mail breast with huge, muscular arms. She cried out as her ribs cracked audibly, then savagely head-butted Kae in the face. He roared again and dropped her. Suzie grinned fiercely at him through the bloody mask of her face, and went for him with her knife. And Kae grabbed a flaring torch from its iron wall holder and thrust it right into her ravaged face.

There was smoke, and spitting fat, and the stench of burning meat, but she didn't scream. She fell, but she didn't scream. -Paths Not Taken

I made myself look at what remained of her face. The whole left side was gone, a ragged torn-up mess only held together by charred and blackened flesh. And then, as I watched, the terrible wounds began to heal. The torn flesh crawled together, slowly closing over and drawing itself together into old scar tissue. Even the empty eye-socket closed, the lids sealed together. Until at the end it was the awful, familiar, disfigured face I'd seen once before-on the Suzie Shooter from the future.

I had brought Suzie here, to this place and time, and made that face, that Suzie possible.

She smiled at me, but only half her mouth moved. She gingerly touched at the scarred half of her face with her fingertips, then took her hand away again. "Don't look so shocked, Taylor. You put werewolf blood into me to save my life, remember, back during the angel war? The blood wasn't strong enough or pure enough to make me into a were, but it did give me one hell of a healing factor. Very useful, in the bounty-hunting business. My face... will never be the same again, I know that. My healing factor has very definite limits. But I can live with this. It's not like I ever cared about looking pretty" -Paths Not Taken

Herne The Hunter (whose current self appeared in the last book) is revealed to have been Merlin Satanspawn's teacher.

"Yes!" I said, slamming my hand down on the bar again, and then wished I hadn't, as something sticky clung to it as I pulled my hand back again. "Of course, Herne the Hunter! I'd forgotten he was here, in this time."

"Herne?" said Suzie. "That scruffy godling who hangs around Rats' Alley with the rest of the homeless?"

"He's a Power, here and now," I said. "A Major Power, drawing his strength from the wild forests of old England, and all the creatures that live in it. He was, or more properly will be, Merlin's teacher. Oh yes ... He's got more than enough power to help us out." -Paths Not Taken

Father Time's magical protections grant John and Suzie instant knowledge of all there is to know about horseback riding the moment they mount a horse.

Marcellus boosted Livia onto her mount, and then vaulted onto his horse's back like he'd been doing it all his life. Suzie and I looked at each other. Several false starts and one really embarrassing tumble later, the horse-trader provided us with special mounting ladders (for an extra payment), and Suzie and I were up and onto our horses, trying to hold our reins like we looked like we knew what to do with them. It seemed a very long way off the ground. And then suddenly Old Father Time's protective magic kicked in again, and immediately I knew all there was to know about how to ride a horse. I sat up straighter and took up the slack in the reins. The horse settled down, as it realised I wasn't a complete idiot after all, and a quick glance at Suzie showed she was in control, too. I nodded curtly to Marcellus and Livia, and we set off. -Paths Not Taken

Herne the Hunter in his prime:

We finally stood before Herne the Hunter, and he looked nothing like the small, diminished thing I'd known in Rats' Alley. That Herne had been many centuries older, shrunken in upon himself, his power lost to the relentless encroachment of man and his civilisation, sweeping across the great green lands of England. This Herne was a Being and a Power, a nature god in his prime and in his element, and his wide, wolfish grin made it clear that we had only been allowed before him by his permission. We were at his mercy. He was still a squat and ugly figure, heavy-boned with an animal's graceful musculature, but his compact body burned with rude good health and godly power. Huge goat's horns curled up from his lowering brow, on his great leonine head, and his eyes held the hot, gleeful malice of every predator that ever was.

There was a force and a vitality in him that burned like a furnace, and simply looking at him you knew he could run all day and all night and never tire, and still tear his prey limb from limb with his bare hands at the end of the hunt. His dark copper skin was covered with hair so thick it was almost fur, and he had hooves instead of feet. He was Herne and Pan and the laughter in the woods. The piper at the gates of dawn, and the bloody-mouthed thing that squatted over endless kills. His unwavering smile showed sharp, heavy teeth, made for rending and tearing. He smelled of sweat and shit and animal musk, and even as we watched he pissed carelessly on the ground between his feet, the sharp acidic smell disturbing the animals around him. They stirred and stamped their feet uneasily. Their god was marking his territory.

This was not the Herne I had known, or expected, and I was afraid of him. His thick scent stirred old atavistic instincts in me. I wanted to fight him, or run from him, or bow down and worship him. I was far from home, in an alien place, and I knew in my blood and my bone and my water that I should never have come here. This was Herne, the spirit of the hunt and the thrill of the chase, the brute animal force that drives the raw red passion of savagery in nature, dripping red in tooth and claw. He was the wildness of the woods and the triumph of the strong over the weak. He was everything we left behind, when we went out of the woods to become civilised.

And I had thought to come here, to trick or intimidate him into granting me a favour? I must have been mad. -Paths Not Taken

With a single gesture, he fuses two people together and grants them immense power in the process, turning them into what would later be known as the Lamentation.

"As you wish, so shall it be," said Herne, and the disdainful amusement in his voice really should have warned them. Certainly they sensed something, for all their stupid wide grins, and they moved protectively together. Herne smiled upon them. "You shall be a Power, together forever, my curse to unleash upon Man and his Nightside city."

He laughed, and again his whole monstrous Court laughed with him, a horrible hellish sound. Herne gestured abruptly, and Marcellus and Livia slammed together. They both cried out as their bodies pressed so tight their ribs cracked and broke. Their flesh stirred and became fluid, merging and mixing together. Their faces melted into each other. They were screaming by then, in a single awful voice. And all too soon there before the wood god stood a single joined creature, twice the size of a man, with protruding bones and too many joints, and a horrible mad gaze burning in its single set of eyes. The creature tried to speak with its single mouth, but shock had driven speech from it, for the moment, so it mewled and howled piteously. It fell forward onto all fours, unable to find the balance in its single form, shaking its malformed head again and again.

"Go forth, and be a plague in the Nightside city," said Herne. "All who suffer shall be drawn to you, and from their pain you will find the Power you crave. Hurt and horror and despair will make you strong, and the suffering you cause in turn shall be your vengeance on an unfeeling world. And by my gift, you shall never be parted again. That is what you wanted, after all."

He sat back on his Throne and gestured contemptuously, and the creatures of his Court drove the new-born Power out of the clearing. It scrabbled away on all fours, like an animal, howling and screeching like a mad thing, its long torment just begun. And of all of us there, only I knew that someday it would be called the Lamentation, the Saint of Suffering; and I would be the one to destroy it.

Time has a great fondness for circles. -Paths Not Taken

After John outwits Herne, the latter abandons his kinfolk and steps into the Nightside, hoping to kill him. Then a being we know as the Lord of Thorns steps in to put a stop to that.

He stepped forward, and Suzie and I braced ourselves to meet the fury of the wood god. And that was when a dark-haired man in a long flowing robe, carrying a long wooden staff, appeared out of nowhere to stand between us and Herne. Suzie actually jumped a little, and I had to grab her arm to steady myself. Heme held his ground, snarling uncertainly at the newcomer, who slammed his staff into the ground before Herne. It stood there, alone and upright, quivering slightly.

"I am the Lord of Thorns," said the newcomer. "Newly appointed Overseer of the Nightside. And you should not be here, Herne the Hunter."

"Appointed by who?" snapped Herne. "By that new god, the Christ? You have his smell on you. I was here before him, and I shall hold sway in the woods long after he has been forgotten."

"No," said the Lord of Thorns. "He has come, and nothing shall ever be the same again. I have been given power over all the Nightside, to see that agreements are enforced. You set up the rules of the Wild Hunt, and so are bound by them. You invested your own power in the Hunt, to make it the significant thing that it is, and so it has power over you. You cannot enter here." -Paths Not Taken

When Herne attempts to grab the Lord's staff, it reacts on its own, depowering him and cutting him off from the wilds he draws strength from.

Herne grabbed at the Lord of Thorns' standing staff, to tear it out of the ground and perhaps use it as a weapon; but the moment he touched it, the ground shook, and bright light surged up, and the wood god cried out despairingly in pain and shock and horror. He fell writhing to the ground, curled up into a ball, and sobbed at the feet of the Lord of Thorns, who looked down on him sadly.

"You did this to yourself, Herne. You are of the city now, by your own act, cut off from the woods and the wild places, only a small fraction of what you once were, now and forever."

"I want to go home," said Herne, like a small child.

"You can't," said the Lord of Thorns. "You chose to come into the city, and now you belong here."

"But what am I to do?"

"Go forth and do penance. Until finally, perhaps, you can learn to make your peace with the civilization that is coming."

Herne snarled up at the Lord of Thorns, with a touch of his old defiance, and then the broken god, smaller and much diminished, crept past the Lord of Thorns and disappeared into the streets of the city. -Paths Not Taken

The Lord of Thorns heals all of John's wounds.

Then the Lord of Thorns knelt beside me. He had a kind, bearded face. He put his hand on my chest, and it was like my whole body got jump-started. Strength and vitality slammed through me like an electric charge, driving out the pain and weariness, and I sat bolt upright, crying out loud at the shock and joy of it. Suzie fell back on her haunches, squeaking loudly in surprise. I laughed suddenly, so glad to be alive. I scrambled up onto my feet, hauling Suzie up with me, and I hugged her to me. Her body started to tense up, so I let her go. Some miracles take longer to work out than others.

I checked myself over. My trench coat was a thing of rags and tatters, mostly held together by dried blood, but all my wounds were gone, healed, as though they had never been. I was whole again. I looked blankly at the Lord of Thorns, and he smiled and bowed slightly, like a stage magician acknowledging a clever trick.

"I am the Overseer, and it is my job and privilege to put things right, where a wrong has been committed. How do you feel?"

"Bloody marvelous! Like I could take on the whole damned world!" I looked down at my tattered coat. "I don't suppose..."

He shook his head firmly. "I'm the Overseer, not a tailor." -Paths Not Taken

The Lord of Thorns has the power to send John and Suzie back in time (as well as the prior knowledge of that being what they want) and promptly does so:

We looked back at the Lord of Thorns, as he coughed meaningfully. "It is my understanding that you seek to travel further back in Time, to the very creation of the Nightside itself. Is that correct?"

"Yes," I said. "How did ..."

"I know what I need to know. Comes with the job. I am here to help, after all. That's what the Church of the Christ is supposed to be about. Helping, and caring, and teaching others to take responsibility for their own actions."

"Even in a place like this?" said Suzie.

"Especially in a place like this," said the Lord of Thorns.

He slammed his long wooden staff against the ground once more, and the whole world flew away from us, as we dropped back into Time's river, sweeping back into Yesterday. -Paths Not Taken

After they finally arrive at the time period they've been looking for, Lilith appears.

And then we both looked round sharply. The whole forest had gone quiet, and there was a new feeling on the air. Just for a moment everything was so still I could hear the rasp of my own breathing, feel the beating of my heart. Suzie and I looked out into the clearing, our attention drawn to the open space like beasts in the wild sensing a coming storm. There was a sound. A sound on the air, but not of it, coming from everywhere and nowhere. It filled the whole world, filled my mind, and it was not a natural sound. It was the cry of something being born, of something dying, an emotion and an experience and an ecstasy beyond human knowledge or comprehension. The sound rose and rose, growing louder and more piercing and more inhuman, until Suzie and I had to clap our hands over our ears to try and keep it out, and still the sound rose and rose, louder and louder, until it became unbearable; and still it rose. Finally, mercifully, it rose beyond our ability to hear it, and Suzie and I were left shaking and shuddering, breathing harshly and shaking our heads as though trying to clear something out. I couldn't hear anything, even when Suzie spoke to me, and we both looked out into the clearing again. Something was going to happen. We could feel it. We could still feel the sound, feel it in our bones and in our souls.

And then Lilith was suddenly there, standing in front of the trees at the edge of the clearing, perhaps as little as twenty feet from where Suzie and I stood watching. The sound was gone. Lilith had made her entrance. She stood staring intently out at the clearing she'd made, her dark eyes fixed and unblinking. Suzie and I silently stepped further back into the dark of the forest, concealing ourselves in the deepest shadows. Just to see Lilith was to be scared of her. Of the power that burned in her, like all the stars in all the galaxies. She might have been created to be Adam's wife, but she'd come a long way since then.

She hadn't simply appeared. It was as though Lilith had stamped or imprinted herself directly onto reality, by sheer force of will. She was there now because she chose to be, and somehow she seemed realer than anything else in the material world. She looked ... pretty much as I remembered her, from the last time I'd seen her. In Strangefellows bar, at the end of my last case. Just before everything went to hell. -Paths Not Taken

This ridiculously powerful being is only an avatar of Lilith, a physical puppet she manipulates from beyond reality.

I remembered the man called Madman, who Saw the world and everything in it more clearly than most, saying that the Lilith we saw and experienced was only a limited projection into our reality of something much greater and more complex. We only saw what we could stand to see. He also said that the human Lilith was really just a glorified glove puppet that she manipulated from afar.

Lilith. Mother. Monster. -Paths Not Taken

She is capable of speaking in a language that not even Old Father Time's magic is powerful enough to translate into English.

She spoke a Word aloud, and it hit the air like a hammer. The sound of it filled the world, its echoes reaching out to touch everything. It was a word from no language I knew or could ever hope to understand, even with the assistance of Old Father Time's magic; it was an old word out of an old language, perhaps the basic language from which all others evolved. I could understand enough of its meaning to be glad I didn't understand any more. -Paths Not Taken

Lilith mated with the demons of Hell after she was thrown out of Eden, spawning creatures that would eventually become the ancestors and progenitors of all of the supernatural creatures contained within the Nightside.

"Let me shoot them! They need shooting, on general principles!"

"I feel the same way," I said, glaring right back at her. "But we can't afford to be noticed yet. And I'm pretty sure most of those things would shrug off a shotgun blast anyway."

She nodded reluctantly, and I cautiously let go of the gun. "I loaded up with cursed and blessed ammunition," she said, a little sulkily.

"Even so. I know what those creatures are, Suzie. After being thrown out of Eden, Lilith went down into Hell and lay down with all the demons there, and in time gave birth to all the monsters that have plagued Mankind. Those things out there ... are her children."

"How can you be so sure of that?" said Suzie.

"I feel it," I said. "I know it like I know my own name. Those things will become the Powers and Dominations of our time, and their many descendants will become vampires and werewolves and ghouls and all the other predators of the Nightside." -Paths Not Taken

Lilith creates the Nightside with a single word.

Lilith looked out across the writhing, pulsating crowd before her, and her wide smile was as cold and unreadable as the rest of her. She could have been thinking anything, anything at all. Finally, she gestured briefly, brutally, and the crowd split in two, falling back on both sides as Lilith frowned, concentrating, and spoke another Word. Even her monstrous children cringed back from the sound of it, and I could feel reality itself shake and shudder as Lilith enforced her awful will upon it. The whole of the dark forest stirred and groaned, a living thing in pain, then, all in one terrible moment, Lilith gave birth to the Nightside through a single effort of will and determination.

A great city suddenly filled the clearing from boundary to boundary, shining bright as the sun, massive and ornate, a singular creation of wonder and beauty. It was a vision of great sparkling towers and massive shimmering domes, delicate elemental walkways and insanely elegant palaces-a glorious ideal city, a thing of dreams made real in stone and wood, marble and metal. It was magnificent, like the cities we see in our minds when we dream of distant places. All its shapes were curved, smooth and rounded, almost organic, the buildings rising and falling like waves in an artificial sea, and none of them were in proportion to each other. The city Lilith had created was inhumanly beautiful, and flawed, just like her. -Paths Not Taken

By the way, until further notice, Lilith did not create the thousands of stars that currently exist within the Nightside when she created the Nightside itself. Just wanted to put that out there.

"Look at the stars," I said suddenly. "And the moon, shining down on the new Nightside. They're still the same, the ordinary unaffected night sky we saw before Lilith even arrived. Nothing up there's changed. And that's not the stars and moon we're used to seeing over our Nightside."

"So?" said Suzie.

"So, I don't think our Nightside is necessarily where and when we always assumed it was." -Paths Not Taken

Two angels from Above and Below appear, and soon after, we learn that their forms are taken directly from the minds of those who view them.

And that was when the two angels suddenly appeared before us.

It was obvious they came from Above and Below. They were suddenly standing there before us, two tall idealised humanoid figures with massive wings spreading out behind their backs. One was composed entirely of light, the other of darkness. We couldn't see their faces. There was no question but they were angels. I could feel it in my soul. Part of me wanted to kneel and bow my head to them, but I didn't. I'm John Taylor. Suzie already had her shotgun trained on them. She's never been much of a one for bowing either. I had to smile. The angels looked at each other. We weren't what they'd expected.

"As if things aren't complicated enough," I said, "now Heaven and Hell are getting directly involved. Wonderful."

"Bloody angels," growled Suzie. "Bullyboys from the afterlife. I ought to rip your pin-feathers out. What do you want?"

"We want you," said the angel of light. Its words rang in my head like silver bells.

"We want you to stop Lilith. We can help you," said the dark angel. Its words stank in my head like burning flesh.

"I am Gabriel."

"I am Baphomet."

"This is not how we really are," said Gabriel. "We found these images in your heads."

"Comfortable fictions," said Baphomet.

"Designed to make you comfortable with our presence."

"But not too comfortable. We are the will of Heaven and Hell made flesh, and we have been given jurisdiction in this matter." -Paths Not Taken

Angels are diminished through the act of becoming material. To add to this, the Nightside is designed to vastly weaken any angels from Heaven or Hell that attempt to set foot in it.

I'd seen this kind of limited thinking before, back during the angel war. Angels of either House were always much diminished by being made material. They were still unutterably powerful, and their very nature made them unwavering in their purpose, but you couldn't argue or reason with them. Even when conditions had clearly changed so much that their original purpose was no longer relevant. Angels were spiritual storm-troopers. If a city had to be destroyed, or the first-born of a generation destroyed, send in the angels. Of course, that was still to come.

"You want Lilith taken out, why don't you get on with it?" said Suzie.

"We cannot simply walk into her city and destroy her," said Gabriel. "Lilith has designed her creation so that simply by entering it, all emissaries of Heaven and Hell would be terribly weakened."

"And then she would destroy us," said Baphomet. "She hates all emissaries of authority, whether from Above or Below." -Paths Not Taken

Angels can amp mortal beings by possessing them.

"We can make you powerful," said Baphomet. "Powerful enough to deal with Lilith as she deserves to be dealt with."

"How?" I said.

"By possessing you," said Gabriel. -Paths Not Taken

This also serves as a means for the angels to venture into the Nightside without weakening any.

We went back to the angels. "Explain exactly what you mean by possession," I said. "And be really, really convincing that this is necessary."

"We will not be controlling you," said Gabriel. "We will merely inhabit your bodies to grant you our power."

"One of us, in each of you," said Baphomet. "Your human nature will carry our power into Lilith's city, and together we shall bring her down."

"You will enable us to carry out our mission. And afterwards, we shall leave your bodies, and return you to where you belong." -Paths Not Taken

Huge statements inbound. After Baphomet possesses John, he gains access to new senses in addition to all five of his previous ones, the latter of which are enhanced to vastly superhuman levels. In addition to this, he describes himself as feeling if he's capable of tearing the entire material world apart with his bare hands, and outright knows that he now has the ability to reinvigorate dying stars and speed up the planets' orbit around the Sun.

Without any warning, both angels stepped forward and into us, like swimmers diving into deep water. Suzie and I both cried out, more in surprise than shock, and as quickly as that it was done. Baphomet was in my mind, like an idea out of nowhere, like a memory I'd forgotten, like an impulse from a place I normally kept heavily suppressed. And with the angel came power. It was like being plugged into the energy that runs the universe. I could see for miles, hear every sound in the night, and every movement of the air on my skin was like a caress. Suddenly I had other senses, too, and all the worlds within the world, and above and beyond it, unfolded all around me. I was drunk with knowledge, raging with power. I felt like I could tear the whole material world apart with my bare hands. That I could lay waste to any enemy, or dismiss them with a look. I knew that I could breathe life into dying suns, speed the planets in their orbits, dance the dance of life and death, redemption and damnation. -Paths Not Taken

John and Suzie completely demolish several creatures with their new powers. Not only are they now physically strong enough to rip these beings apart with ease, but their mere gaze and will are powerful enough to melt some of them and completely banish others from the material world.

The creatures rushed us, attacking from every side with tooth and claw and barbed, ripping tentacle. They hated us, just for what we were. For our having dared to enter the place that Lilith had assured them was safe from outside interference. Huge and monstrous, fast and strong, they came at us, death and destruction made flesh, hate and spite and bitter evil given shape and form. They never stood a chance.

Suzie and I looked at them with the power of angels in our eyes, and some of the creatures melted away under the pressure of that gaze, not strong or certain enough to withstand our augmented will. The flesh slipped from their bones like mud and splashed on the ground. Others simply disappeared, banished from the material world by our overwhelming determination. But most stood their ground and fought. They cut at us with claws and barbs, and mouths snapped all around us, while spiked tentacles sought to enwrap or tear us apart. We took no hurt. We were above that. We grabbed them with our strong hands and tore them limb from limb. Our fists punched through the hardest flesh and shattered the thickest carapaces. We crushed skulls and punched in chests and ripped off arms and legs and tentacles. More creatures came running, from every direction at once, spilling and bursting out of every adjoining street and alley. They outnumbered us a hundred to one, a thousand to one, living nightmares and killing machines of unnatural flesh and blood, every shape and form that darkness could conceive.

But Suzie and I had angels within us, and we were strong, so strong. -Paths Not Taken

The carnage continues, with John and Suzie obliterating more and more of these creatures with ease, even splattering some of them with nothing but their gaze.

The street beneath our feet broke apart as awful things burst up out of the earth beneath the city. They wrapped around our legs and tried to drag us down. Bat-winged things slammed down out of the night sky, to tear and rend or snatch us up and carry us away. Suzie and I fought them all, our fingers sinking deep into yielding flesh. We picked creatures up and threw them away, and they crashed into elegant walls and brought down tall buildings. We walked steadily forward, and nothing could stand against us. The dead piled up everywhere, and the wounded crawled away, cursing and weeping and calling out for their mother. Wherever we turned our gaze or our hands, monstrous forms broke or faded away, and some splashed like bloody mud in the streets. Finally, the survivors turned and ran, disappearing back into the centre of the city, back to the dark heart of the Nightside, where Lilith waited for us to come to her. Suzie and I walked through the dead and the dying, the dismembered creatures and the splintered carapaces, ignoring the wounded and the weeping. They were not why we were there. -Paths Not Taken

Lilith can see time itself.

"So," she said finally. "Alone at last. I thought they'd never go. You are humans. Not quite what I was expecting."

"We're what humans will be," I said. "We're from the future."

"I thought you must be," said Lilith. "Without the angelic presence to mask it, you're dripping with Time. Thousands of years of it, I'd say. Why have you come such a long way to be here, speaking a language you shouldn't be able to understand, knowing things you shouldn't know?" -Paths Not Taken

She can drain the life from any beings she's given birth to.

She rose suddenly out of her Throne and surged forward inhumanly quickly to grab my face in both her hands. I cried out, in shock and pain and horror. Her touch was cold as knives, cold as death, and the endless cold within her sucked the living energy right out of me. I grabbed her wrists with both my hands, but my human strength was nothing next to hers. She smiled as she drained the life out of me, and into her. Smiled with those dark lips and those dark, dark eyes.

"I gave you life, and now I take it back," she said. "You will make me strong again, my son." -Paths Not Taken